D&D for very young kids

[Kargin el Tomath]

Characters die. Thats part of the game. I'm sure we've all seen how some 20 year olds act when their character dies. Could you just imagine how a 5 year old would react. There needs to be a certain maturity level for the game. While it is fantasy some realistic elements still exist and some of these elements are to great for a 5 year old mind to comprehend.

 

[Storminator]

There was one thing I forgot to mention, and maybe someone can help me out. There was a card game somebody brought up on the old boards maybe over a year ago and I don't remember the name of it. I was going to order it, but can't find it anywhere and must not have saved the link.

It was a deck of cards. You draw the card and have to tell a story about the card. Them the next person draws a card, and builds upon the story the first person started. This continues as long as desired.

If anyone remembers the name please remind me.

Once Upon A Time by Atlas Games.

PS

 

[WSmith]

AH YES! Thanks.

 

[cthuluftaghn]

Hi,

I just noticed this thread, and I thought I'd point out my After Dinner Encounters thread in the Story Hour forum. It's a series of mini adventures that I'm playing with my 8 year old.

Short encounters for a short attention span. One-on-one so all the attention is on him. And lots of fudged dice rolls behind my screen. I do go by the rules, in order to teach him game mechanics. I'm just selective of the rules that he's learning, and make them sound as simple as possible.

 

[Rashak Mani]

Word of Caution...

LARP with kids... they can regenerate better than we adults can... they also usually have toy helmets and shields that we dont have. So protect yourself. Kids can be viciously good aimers.

I once did this Live Roleplaying with my younger brother... orcs and all. When the Orc Leader showed up (poor me of course) I spooked him and his immediate reaction was a kick to the groin area.... OUCH ! Orc Leader down in ONE swift KICK !

DONT get them TOO excited ...

 

[Akunin]

Pokemon Jr., call me names if you want but this is one of the most underrated products for introducing young kids to RPing.

Seconded. You can pick it up for a few dollars, and even if the kids aren't into Pokemon, the underlying rules system is easy enough to port over to any setting. I have a friend with three kids 6 and younger. I loaned her the game, and the kids loved it. They're really into super heroes, and I had talked with her about writing up super characters for use with the game rules.

The Pokemon (and there are about 18 or so represented, IIRC) have cards with a picture and stats on them. Each card is double-sided, with a different power on either side. The kids choose which attack they want to use and place the card with that side up. Rules for what you need to roll to activate the power, along with its effects are listed on the card. You could have a wizard with a fire spell on one side and a sleep spell on the other, or a cleric with a mace and healing spell, a fighter with a sword and a bull rush, etc.

The game takes less than 10 minutes for the parent to learn, and only a couple minutes for the kids. The adventures included start the kids with their very first Pokemon and teach the rules one at a time, over a series of encounters.

I'd rate the game, overall, at six stars out of five.

 

[mmadsen]

I think we need to take a step back and consider the situation. Not only do most parents frown on D&D (due to rumors spread for the last 20 years of it supposedly dealing with the occult)...

I hardly think most parents frown on D&D. Most aren't even aware of it. And I seriously doubt the children of ENWorlders have parents who frown on D&D...

...most five year olds not only don't have the attention span for it, but also hop from fad to fad to fad (Poke'mon to Digimon to Dragonball Z to Harry Potter).

I don't see the problem in five-year-olds hopping from fad to fad. Anyway, you could just as easily play a Ninja Turtles-themed campaign (of a few sessions), followed by a Power Rangers-themed campaign, followed by a Pokemon-themed campaign, and so on.

If you're worried about attention span during a single session, you simply have to aim the game at their cognitive level. They obviously won't follow political intrigue, but they can run away from an ogre.

I have a 4 year old daughter. She can count to 20. This is just a hair above average for someone her age. I haighly doubt that even if she were 3 months older (She'll be 5 on September 10th) that she could even begin to comprehend the differences in the races let alone in complex levels and attack bonuses.

There's a world of difference between a four-year-old, a five-year-old, and a six-year-old. Further, why would you want/need/expect a five-year-old to calculate racial differences, attack bonuses, etc.? That's what the adult DM is for.

 

[ogre]

My kids play, and they love it. They are 10 (girl) and 8 (boy).
I bought them the box set last year and we have been playing through the adventures in that book. My daughter plays Mialee and my son plays Jozan. They have reached 3rd level and are multiclass now! heeh, I know, blasphemy to the Iconics heh. But, they wanted to do things that the single class didn't allow, so Mialee is Wiz2/Rog1 and Jozan is Cl2/Ftr1.
They have very distinct styles and the boy is about as chaotic as anything, poor Mialee can barely get him to stop bashing doors down so she can pick the lock.
Anyway, I think it's great and they love it more than watching movies on the VCR or playing on the computer...which is saying something in this day and age.

.... I can see it now someday, in the old folks home....waiting for my son to come by for a visit....so I can play on his world!! LOL

 

[kenjib]

Some of these replies are really cracking me up!

Characters die. Thats part of the game. I'm sure we've all seen how some 20 year olds act when their character dies. Could you just imagine how a 5 year old would react. There needs to be a certain maturity level for the game. While it is fantasy some realistic elements still exist and some of these elements are to great for a 5 year old mind to comprehend.

That's a great point. How do you deal with character death? Does it need to be part of the game for really young kids?

One thing that character death does is add tension so the game doesn't get boring, but I think that there are plenty of other things going on in the game that are so fresh and new to a young kid that they wouldn't really catch on to the nuances of "if I can't die there is no glory in my success."

Couldn't you give them setbacks instead of killing them? i.e. the troll conks you over the head and now you are captive in his cave, or the evil witch casts a terrible curse on you that requires you to go on a quest to remove, etc. Why can't you turn -10 hit points into a plot mechanism instead of death? This still teaches them that there are risks and penalties for failure - acquiring a strength penalty, losing your favorite sword, being captured, etc.

 

[mmadsen]

How do you deal with character death? Does it need to be part of the game for really young kids?

Character death doesn't need to be part of the game -- for young kids or even for adults. From personal experience, losing a 1st-level Fighter was only mildly disappointing to me, learning the game. I was happy to die to the same carnivorous ape, over and over. Once I'd built up a character though...

Couldn't you give them setbacks instead of killing them?

Even as a kid I found myself DMing this way with my other kid friends.